Chapter 21: Earth’s Records

Within a sealed cavern, encompassed by blackness, sitting crossed legs, Zax prepared himself to tackle the fifth bottleneck of insight.

Smell, touch, taste, sight ... These were the four bottlenecks of insight Zax already perceived and proceeded to comprehend.

Zax was not oblivious. By now he could tell that the bottlenecks of insight have something to do with the five senses.

The issue was with him unable to figure out if the remaining sense, sense of hearing, which will probably make him conscious to the sound of the world, is this new, fifth, bottleneck he faces or would it rather be the last, sixth, bottleneck.

Regardless of the sense of hearing being fifth or sixth, there were two other more questions on Zax’s mind.

If there are only five major senses and each one is being represented by one bottleneck of insight, what would be represented in the remaining bottleneck?

Also, who dictated, and why, that to traverse the road of Martial cultivation, it is necessary to comprehend bottlenecks that, overall, have a nearly similar effect to regular soul cultivation? One would even debate that cultivating the soul the normal way is much more efficient than dealing with the sixth bottlenecks of insight.

Sadly, to these questions, not even Zax’s Master and Grandmaster Kartion could answer or be assure that anyone in New Earth knows.

Comprehending five out of the six bottlenecks of insight is already unheard of, much less six, so even speculating is meaningless!

Zax heaved a long, cold breath and calmed his nerves. Despite his mental preparations, he was still agitated by the thought of how the fifth bottlenecks of affect him and how long the effect would last.

‘It is not good!’ Zax berated himself. ‘With this kind of bearing I can’t face the world above ground’.

Feeling his pants’ pocket he took out the Blue Stone Ariel handed him.

‘Let’s first see what’s inside’.

Although the cave was utterly dark, Zax’s eyesight as a bodily cultivator was extraordinarily keen. Furthermore, a cultivator’s Soul Sense, at a certain level of the soul, is so perceptive that it can practically read the ink on a the flat surface of a book’s page, and in a higher level can even distinguish intangible shapes who do not possess mist’s or soul’s energy signature, such as holograms.

Generally only a third level Core Master, or a higher level cultivator, can discern intangible shapes. Zax, due to his unique soul, since his soul reached to the Advanced phase of level B could distinguish intangible shapes.

Using his soul energy to activate the Blue Stone, a small blue and glowing tower, thirty seven centimeter tall, emerged on Zax’s hand.

A rolled scroll was the first thing that Zax’s hand picked up from inside the blue tower.

Putting down the blue tower, Zax broke the red seal and opened wide the scroll, which felt fragile and easy to tear.

The scroll stretched to a length of roughly two meters and was filled by written content and several drawings.

‘Mmm ... unexpectedly this scroll has been written by more than one person”. Zax could tell by the various handwritings. “There is no way senior Ariel gave me the original manuscript, but if this is a copy why did he not give me a new one?’ Zax wondered in the split second it took his eyes to land on the computer’s font introduction, and guess the answer on his own.

“Earth’s Records - the complete addition.

Copy No. 18/22.

Notice: The scroll will disintegrate within thirty seconds after the breaking of the seal. In case of remnants, per the decree of three Supreme Rulers, the opener of the scroll must get rid entirely of any remnants and maintain secrecy over the knowledge obtain from the complete addition of Earth’s Records”.

‘Thirty seconds before it get destroyed... ‘ Zax indeed detected a formation embedded to the scroll.

‘Should not waste time’.

Although to experts on Zax’s level thirty seconds might as well be hours, sometime they might encounter something that would made them delve into contemplation that could last for a very long span of time, depends on how profound the matter that got their attention.

First, Zax covered all the reading material, which started being documented from the instant its primary writer stepped foot beneath the blue sky.

‘The rain forests of old South America!’ It was not a significant read, yet, somehow, it aroused inside of Zax a bubbly sense of expectation as his eyes continued to follow word after word.

“Hahaha! So in the great immigration humanity and beasts found the pathway to New Earth there!” It was common knowledge only to the highest echelon of New Earth, both in Kingdom Earth and Valgarel. Naturally, Zax never heard about it before this moment.

As enthusiasm kept growing, Zax’s outer voice continuously commented outloud.

“It really says nothing about the location of the pathway from New Earth to above the ground. I supposed at the day of my departure senior Ariel would reveal it to me. And crossing to the other side I’ll get to the ancient continent South America, which now is referred to by the five powers as ‘Selivereb’, mm ... translated to ‘Neutral Landscape’ according to what it says here is the native language of the world above ground or ‘Ercas Mir’...”

The scroll further explained that although on the surface of the earth, Ercas Mir, the general language being used is different than the one commonly spread in New Earth, in the cities close to the pathway to New Earth, which were visited by a few of the scroll writers, most of the denizens do speak New Earth’s tongue. Supposedly it was introduced by the Blessed Army and the Violet Scaled Troops with benefits to those who master it. To what end and whether the other three powers also publicize the language of New Earth in their territories, the scroll’s writers could not tell.

It is also been written that due to Selivereb being the land where the pathway to New Earth is located, despite it being in the mutual zone of the Violet Scaled Troops and the Blessed Army, the five powers have agreed to not monopolize the area and each stationed an emissary to oversee the very strict intersection to and from New Earth.

“What! They shifted that much?!” Zax burst in astonishment, referring to the old world’s seven continents.

The seven continents, unlike from where humanity and beasts crossed to New Earth, were and are a subject taught in schools.